Nvidia: FTC action against Intel to transform the industry

In a rather unsurprising development, Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia CEO and longtime Intel detractor has chimed in on the recent antitrust lawsuit being brought against the latter, claiming it could have a transformative effect on the computer industry as a whole. In an internal memo sent to employees and obtained by several news outlets, the executive went on about how the GPU is slowly taking a more important role on modern computing and praised the Federal Trade Commission for probing Intel's unlawful attempts to thwart this.

Huang contends that Intel has used its monopoly to illegally stifle innovation, keep prices for their products inflated, and unfairly block competitors. For those unaware, he is of course referring to the ongoing licensing spat which bans them from producing chipsets for any Intel processor with an integrated memory controller, as well as their allegedly unfair Atom bundle prices that have kept many netbook manufacturers away from its superior Ion graphics solution.

Intel maintains that the FTC's case against it is "misguided" and based largely on claims that were added at the last minute without a thorough investigation. Indeed the recent complaint mirrors another long made by AMD, arguing that Intel has set up a system of "threats and rewards" for computer vendors. While this doesn't make the charges less true, now that AMD has settled with Intel for a hefty $1.45 billion and agreed to withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide, it certainly won't turn around and testify against Intel for the FTC.